Human Rights Are Something You Were Born

If You're Not Careful, The Newspapers Will Have You Hating The People Who Are Being Oppressed, And Loving The People Who Are Doing The Oppressing.

You Catch Any White Man Off Guard In Here Right Now, You Catch Him Off Guard And Ask Him What He Is, He Doesn't Say He's An American. He Either Tells You He's Irish, Or He's Italian, Or He's German, If You Catch Him Off Guard And He Doesn't Know What You're Up To. And Even Though He Was Born Here, He'll Tell You He's Italian. Well, If He's Italian, You And I Are African Even Though We Were Born Here.

Anytime There's A Fire In A Negro Community And It's Burning Out Of Control, You Send Any One Of Them, Send Whitney Young In To Put It Out.

Anytime You Live In A Society Supposedly Based Upon Law And It Doesn't Enforce Its Own Laws Because The Color Of A Man's Skin Happens To Be Wrong, Then I Say Those People Are Justified To Resort To Any Means Necessary To Bring About Justice When The Government Can't Give Them Justice.

I Learned Early That Crying Out In Protest Could Accomplish Things. My Older Brothers And Sister Had Started To School When, Sometimes, They Would Come In And Ask For A Buttered Biscuit Or Something And My Mother, Impatiently, Would Tell Them No. But I Would Cry Out And Make A Fuss Until I Got What I Wanted. I Remember Well How My Mother Asked Me Why I Couldn't Be A Nice Boy Like Wilfred; But I Would Think To Myself That Wilfred, For Being So Nice And Quiet, Often Stayed Hungry. So Early In Life, I Had Learned That If You Want Something, You Had Better Make Some Noise.